Balakovo is a city (since 1911) in Russia, located in the
southeastern European part of Russia, the administrative center of
the Balakovo municipal district of the Saratov region. The city of
Balakovo forms the eponymous municipality with the status of an
urban settlement as the only settlement in its composition.
The city is located on the left bank of the Volga River and on an
island (Zhilgorodok).
The only city of five all-Union shock
construction projects in the USSR: Saratov hydroelectric power
station, Balakovo fiber materials plant, phosphate fertilizer plant,
Saratov irrigation and watering canal, Balakovorezinotekhnika,
Balakovskaya nuclear power plant. In honor of this, a memorial
monument was opened in Balakovo in 2015.
The sights of Balakovo are a number of buildings of the 19th and 20th centuries: the Holy Trinity Church (1910-1914, architect F. O. Shekhtel), the mansion of P. M. Maltsev (1890s, architect F. I. Shuster), the estate of Anisim Maltsev, Schmidt trading house (1911), fire tower, V.V. Golovanov’s mansion (1912, later a local history museum), mansions of Yakov and Ivan Mamin (1910), Stroikov-Yakimov estate (1902), commercial school (1910), built by a landowner and philanthropist I.V. Kobzar, house-museum of V.I. Chapaev. The attraction of the city center is the esplanade (park), which is used by city residents as a park and a place for public celebrations, and the Church of the Nativity.
Balakovo Drama Theater named after E. A. Lebedev (ceased to exist)
Balakovo Theater for Young Spectators named after E.A. Lebedev
Balakovo Philharmonic named after M. E. Siropov
City Exhibition Hall
City Park of Culture and Recreation
Cinemas: “Mir”, “Russia”
City
History Museum
District Palace of Culture
Balakovo Art Gallery
(branch of the Saratov Art Museum named after A. N. Radishchev)
For a long time it was believed
that the city of Balakovo was founded in 1762, but later a document
dated 1738 was discovered in the archives of St. Petersburg, which
mentions the Cossack meadow possession of Balakov yurts, located two
miles from the Volga. On December 14, 1762, the Empress of Russia
Catherine II issued a manifesto urging the Old Believers who had
once fled to Poland to return from abroad to Russia and settle on
the lands between the Bolshoi and Maly Irgiz rivers. The adherents
of the old faith were allocated 70,000 dessiatines (76,300 hectares)
of the best Trans-Volga land for use. The returning Old Believers
founded several new settlements, including the village of Balakovo.
In 1861, 2,700 people lived in the village of Balakovo.
The
convenient location on the shipping lanes has helped the village
grow rapidly through the wheat trade. In one season, up to 10
million poods of bread were sent from Balakovo. More than 300
spacious barns located on the banks of the Balakovka River made it
possible to store grain from harvest to harvest. In the 60s of the
XIX century, in one navigation, up to 180 barges with cargo could
depart from Balakov. Another product that Balakovo merchants traded
in huge quantities was timber. Balakovo was an intermediary between
the forest provinces of the Upper Volga region and the treeless
Trans-Volga steppe. Here, from such rivers as Kama, Belaya, Vyatka,
annually brought up to 500 thousand poods of firewood and up to
three million poods of timber building materials. Some of this
timber was processed in two sawmills.
With the development of
trade, the cargo turnover of the quays grew, the fleet of cargo and
passenger ships increased. For their repair, a ship repair industry
was created. In 1897 the population of the village reached 18388
people.
The beginning of the 20th century was marked by a
significant expansion of the borders of the village, as well as an
increase in the number of industrial enterprises. In May 1911, an
imperial decree was signed on conferring the status of a city with
self-government rights to Balakov. And the first city mayor was the
industrialist Ivan Mamin. On the eve of the 1917 revolution, the
city had 6 churches, 7 schools, a grain exchange, the iron foundry
of Fedor Blinov and the Mamin brothers' mechanical plant for oil
engines, ship repair and furniture workshops, sawmills, mills, a
commercial school opened back in 1910 with significant financial
assistance from a merchant - patron of Ivan Kobzar, zemstvo hospital
and city factory outpatient clinic (polyclinic), library, and power
plant, which was organized by the society "Light".
Self-taught inventors Fyodor Abramovich Blinov and Yakov Vasilievich
Mamin glorified Balakovo as the birthplace of the world's first
tracked tractor, self-propelled wheeled vehicle and Russian diesel
engine. The plant of oil engines and tractors of Ya. V. Mamin in
1915 produced 325 diesel engines with a total capacity of 5100
horsepower. The appearance of old Balakov was created by such
architects as H.F. Meyer and academician F.O.Shekhtel. Carefully
preserving and restoring the historical landscape of the central
part, the residents of Balakovo are constantly improving the
appearance of a new, young city with spacious alleys, straight as an
arrow, avenues, slender buildings with elegant facades.
Until 1928, Balakovo was part of the Samara province (in 1919-1924
there was Balakovsky district), after - the Lower Volga region, from
December 5, 1936 - in the Saratov region.
In the period from
1956 to 1971, the Saratov hydroelectric power station was built in
Balakovo, which led to the overflow of the Volga and the flooding of
part of the coastal territory and a change in the appearance of the
modern city, as well as its sharp growth associated with the receipt
of the necessary electricity. In a short time, the Balakovo
industrial complex was created, numbering more than two dozen
enterprises of chemistry, mechanical engineering, energy,
construction industry, food industry. In 1985, the first power unit
of the Balakovo NPP was put into operation, which currently (2010)
has 4 operating power units.
On August 24, 1961, the city of
Balakovo received the status of a city of regional subordination.
As a result of the referendum on December 22, 1996, the Balakovo
municipal entity was created, which included the city of regional
subordination of Balakovo and the rural Balakovo district. In 2004,
the Balakovo Municipal Formation was renamed into the Balakovo
Municipal District.
The city is located on the left bank of the Saratov reservoir, 176 km northeast of Saratov.
The climate of Balakovo is moderate continental arid. A
characteristic feature of the climate is the predominance of clear,
partly cloudy days throughout the year, moderately cold and little snowy
winters, a short dry spring, hot and dry summers. The continental
climate is moderated by the proximity of the reservoir. In recent years,
the climate has tended to warm up during the winter and during March.
Precipitation falls unevenly. Spring and winter are characterized by
little precipitation, but there is more cloudiness during this period
than at other times of the year. In summer and autumn there is more
precipitation, often of a torrential nature, which is unfavorable for
plants and soil due to the washing away of the top fertile layer and
erosion of ravines.
In Balakovo, air masses of temperate
latitudes prevail, moving from the Atlantic to the east; cyclones move
in the same direction, bringing rain in summer and snowfall in winter.
Northern and southern winds penetrate freely, as well as dry winds from
Kazakhstan and Central Asia. The direction is dominated by winds of
southwestern and western orientation. In general, the climate of the
city of Balakovo is somewhat milder than in the surrounding area, warmer
by 2ºC, more precipitation falls, and wind speed is lower.
Average annual temperature - +6.9 C°
Average annual wind speed - 4.1
m/s
Average annual air humidity - 65.3%
Average annual
precipitation - 431 mm
Balakovo NPP
Saratov HPP
Balakovo CHPP-4
In 2011, for
enterprises producing electricity, the volume of shipped goods of their
own production, work and services performed on their own amounted to
46.4 billion rubles.
Enterprise "Balakovo Carbon Production"
Carriage Works
Balakovo fiber materials plant
Balakovo Passenger
Automobile Plant
Argon plant (carbon fiber production)
Enterprise
"Balakovorezinotekhnika"
Balakovo branch of the joint stock company
"Apatit"
Balakovo Mineral Fillers Plant
Volzhsky diesel engine
named after Maminykh (Former Volgodieselmash and Dzerzhinsky plant in
the USSR)
Shipyard
Factory of electrical installation structures
"Gidroelektromontazh"
Balakovo mortar and concrete plant"
Long
rolled steel plant "Balakovo" (sold to AEMZ LLC, previously owned by
Severstal)
Factory of interior doors ALBERO
In March 2013, JSC
RusHydro signed an agreement with the Austrian company Voith Hydro to
create a joint venture VolgaHydro in Balakovo, focused on the production
of hydraulic turbine equipment.
Secondary vocational education
GAPOU SO "Balakovo Industrial and
Transport College named after. N.V. Gribanova"
GAPOU SO "Volga Region
College of Technology and Management"
branch of the State Educational
Institution "Saratov Regional College of Arts" in Balakovo
GAPOU SO
"Governor's Automotive-Electromechanical College"
State Autonomous
Educational Institution "Balakovo Medical College"
GAPOU SO "Balakovo
Polytechnic College"
Non-profit educational institution "Balakovo
Institute of Professional Retraining and Advanced Training"
BITI NRNU MEPhI (Balakovo Institute of Engineering and Technology - a
branch of the federal state autonomous educational institution of higher
professional education "National Research Nuclear University "MEPhI").
Charitable Foundation of RANEPA (Balakovo branch of the Russian Academy
of National Economy and Public Administration under the President of the
Russian Federation)
Charitable Foundation of the Federal State
Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education "SSLA" (Balakovo
branch of the federal state budgetary educational institution of higher
education "Saratov State Law Academy")
Passenger transportation is carried out by trolleybuses (see Balakovo
trolleybus), buses and minibuses.
The connection between the two
parts of the city is provided by a sluice bridge. In 2003, a decision
was made to build a second bridge across the Shipping Canal. On December
9, 2015, the “Victory Bridge” was put into operation.
There is a bus station "Balakovo", a railway station "Balakovo", a
railway station "Linevo" (for freight trains, rail bus), a river port.
Previously, Balakovo had an airport of the same name (located near
the village of Malaya Bykovka), which until the end of the 1990s
received regular flights. The airport was closed in 2003.
A television
Local television company "Media Star Advertising".
Radio
The following FM radio stations are broadcast in the city
96.6 Radio Monte Carlo
97.4 Vesti FM
98.4 Europe Plus
98.8
Our radio
99.2 Traffic radio
99.6 Radio Active
100.0 Retro FM
100.4 Radio Russia / State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company
Saratov
101.3 Lighthouse
101.7 Radiola
103.3 Radio Dacha
103.7 Radio ENERGY
104.2 Love Radio
105.5 Autoradio
106.0
Russian radio
106.5 DFM
107.0 Radio Chanson
107.4 New radio
Connection
As of January 2009, there were three fixed-line
operators in the city: Rostelecom, Hemicomp+ and Chemicomp, 5 mobile
operators in the GSM standard: Beeline, MTS, MegaFon, TELE2, Yota. In
CDMA standard: Skylink (IMT-MC-450) and Megafon-Povolzhye.
Fixed
line numbering in Balakovo is six-digit. The city code is 8453 (same as
the Engels city code).